New Ways to Join Cisco WebEx Meetings from an iPhone!

I’m really excited about our latest version of Cisco WebEx Meeting Center for the iPhone. In version 1.3, available now in the AppStore, you can now hand off your web conference session from your iPhone to your desktop, join by a meeting number, and when you get dropped (still happens!) automatically have your audio reconnected. These new features are in addition to the current feature set: joining a Cisco WebEx Meeting from your iPhone, attending a scheduled meeting, viewing presentations, applications, desktop, live annotations, and chatting with attendees.

The meeting handoff features not only looks really cool when you’re doing it, it’s quite useful for those of us whose eyes aren’t as sharp as they used to be. I start a meeting on my iPhone as I’m walking from my local coffee shop back to my office, pausing at various points to sip my coffee at look at the slides being shared (note: this works better in good weather). Then when I reach my office with my larger monitor connected to my laptop I make a motion sort of like a softball pitch and the meeting gets transferred to my laptop. How cool is that?

And talk about useful. How many times do you get dropped by your carrier when you’re in motion? With me, it depends on where I am, there are always a few “dead zones” that I can guarantee will drop me. Now, the Cisco WebEx system just calls me back.

And our third enhancement is a direct result of user requests, join a meeting just by entering the Cisco WebEx meeting number.

Cisco WebEx and the iPhone – it’s cool, it’s free, and it’s in the AppStore today. Give it a try.

I don't know about you, but my Nokia e63 mobile is a champ. Even their mobile online support is great. I'll take my Nokia over an iPhone any day. As many blogs on http://www.dozenmobile.com say, there's a wealth of cool new phones out there. But if I want to change phone companies, no jailbreaking here, I just have to change the sim. Take that apple!!"

Mac Users - we haven't forgotten you. We do plan to make Cisco WebEx Productivity tools, which is a requirement to support this handoff feature, available to Mac users within the next 12 months. Stay tuned.

IÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¾Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ve been hearing from some of my peers that they are interested in this feature being enabled for Mac users. Does this actually work for them or is there a future release planned to provide them with this exciting functionality too?

IÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¾Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ve been hearing from some of my peers that they are interested in this feature being enabled for Mac users. Does this actually work for them or is there a future release planned to provide them with this exciting functionality too?Thanks in advance! Awesome app!vektÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¶rel"

To answer John's question about availability for MeetingPlace - this feature is a function of Cisco WebEx Meeting Center. As announced last week, Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 8.0 will use Cisco WebEx web conferencing combined with MeetingPlace audio conferencing. Because this feature is part of WebEx Meeting Center it will be available to users who have deployed MeetingPlace 8.0.

A follow-up to questions posed by Gerald Lutz above.1) Audio handoff to the deskphone is possible today using two different methods. If you are using Cisco IP Phones with Cisco Unified Mobility and the callback for the audio portion came to your iPhone via Single Number Reach, you can simply disconnect the audio after the meeting handoff and pick it up on your desk phone. Or, on any phone system, once you connect to the web meeting you will be given an audio callback option. You can simply have Meeting Center call your desk phone.On the subject of meeting handoff from the iPhone to the Mac, this requires WebEx Productivity Tools which are not yet available for the Mac. Tentative plans are in place for this development work, but it is not yet committed. Stay tuned as we do think this is an important capability and that Macs are an important platform to support.

Hi Alex! Great feature!!! I had a couple of questions about it though.1) The handoff really works well for the presentation however, is there a way to configure the audio to automatically hand-off to my deskphone as well?2) I've been hearing from some of my peers that they are interested in this feature being enabled for Mac users. Does this actually work for them or is there a future release planned to provide them with this exciting functionality too?Thanks in advance! Awesome app!-G

I hope that the disconnect"" feature you mention also prevents the app from dropping the meeting when I switch to a different app on the iPhone. I connect to many WebEx meetings that use a 3rd party conferencing system, so I have to dial-in separate from connecting to the WebEx Meeting. When I switch from the WebEx App to dial the number, the meeting gets dropped and I have to ""reconnect"" via the URL in my meeting invite. This cumbersome aspect of the app usually hits me when ATT drops my call and i have to dial in again. Thus, loosing both my call and the webex meeting...Hoping the new version fixes this somehow..."

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